When a flexible material comes tangentially off a coil as the coil is rotated, it does not impart a twist to the flexible material. It does provide the disadvantage that the coil must be supported at the center to allow it to turn freely. If the flexible material is removed from the coil without rotating the coil (i.e. laying a coil flat on the floor and pulling the wire straight up), a twist will be imparted to the flexible material making it difficult to handle, making it likely to tangle, and increasing the possibility of damage to the flexible material.
In some cases, the amount of twist can have undesirable effects on the electrical characteristics of the wire. It is desirable to have the flexible material shipped and stored in a container from which it can be removed without adding a twist and also without rotating the container.
The most conventional method of providing cable from a package which is not twisted is to provide a rotating spool within a corrugated box and pulling the cable hard enough to cause the spool to rotate. High friction, jamming, and high required pulls make this a less than satisfactory solution in many applications.
It is well known in the prior art to provide a package of coiled flexible material that provides for pay out of the coiled flexible material that is twist free from a stationary condition and to provide methods for producing these packages of coiled flexible materials. The prior art discloses a package of flexible material formed from a number of figure-eight type coils where various means are used to provide an opening to the center of the package through which the end of the flexible material is led out in order to allow the flexible material to pay out by this end of the flexible material for twist free pay out. The external shape of the prior art can be spherical, elongated spherical, funnel or cylindrical. The various means of providing an opening to the center of the figure-eight type coil for the end of the flexible material to be led out through include: (1) an axial opening in the package that is formed during the process of manufacturing the package of flexible material; (2) an opening formed from a plurality of conical members that the figure-eight coils are wound around; (3) an opening formed by a circular tube inserted into the package of flexible material; (4) an opening formed by the combination of a circular tube connected to a funnel wherein the funnel acts as a guide for the flexible material as it is pulled to center of the package; (5) an opening formed by an oval shaped tube inserted into the package of flexible material.
For example, the REELEX (a trademark of Windings, Inc) system of coiling, which consists of winding figure-eight coils of filamentary material distributed radially around a mandrel and providing a radial hole extending from the inner coil to the outer coil and through which the coiled filamentary material is to be withdrawn (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,406,419). This prior art allows twist free pay out if the filamentary material has little or no inherent twist in it. However, if the filamentary material has inherent twist, the pay out will not be twist free because the loops of the figure-eights must be free to compensate for one another, thereby canceling the twist caused by each other. If this compensation does not occur, then loops that contain the twist will come free of the pay out tube winding wall and cause tangles. This occurs when winding coils, with the twist, lay very close together. The prior art also teaches a solution to the REELEX problem of having a twist in impeding pay out by receiving the figure-eight coils of flexible material in a box containing a large pay out hole and large tube for allowing the inner end of the flexible material to be led out through the large tube and large pay out hole where the pay out hole is either a diamond or an oval shape. The size of the pay out hole must be large enough to allow the twists to exit the pay out hole and tube. While this allows the filamentary material to be withdrawn form the package, it does not eliminate the twists in the filamentary material. The packages with figure-eight coils are limited to small materials that can fold over on itself inside the center of the coil. These packages have low package density and can cause damage to the flexible material because the flexible material has to fold over itself to unwind from the center of the package. Various methods for producing the above discussed packages have been disclosed in the prior art. In particular, is the patent issued to Henrich (U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,399 dated Apr. 8, 1986), which is directed to a method of winding flexible material onto a spool in a series of coils where the end of the flexible material is reversed from the direction of winding the coils so that the flexible material is led out of the spool so that the flexible material can be subjected to further processing. The above prior art has not solved the problem of twist free pay out of materials in a stationary condition that could be used in every day construction and allows the flexible material to twist prior to leaving the package and causes tangles of the flexible material within the package.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a package of coiled flexible material that provides for pay out of the coiled flexible material that is twist free from a stationary condition and a method for producing the twist free pay out package of coiled flexible material using a non-figure-eight coil where the flexible material is unwound on the axis perpendicular to the coil of the flexible material such that the unwinding of the flexible material in this direction imposes a twist in the flexible material that is opposite the twist imparted in the flexible material when coiled into said package whereby both twists neutralize each other and the flexible material is removed from said package of flexible material twist free.